On 7 May 2021, the Turkish Competition Board made public certain preliminary findings (“Report“) from its e-marketplace sector inquiry, commenced 11 June 2020 (“Inquiry”), by publishing same on the Turkish Competition Authority’s (“TCA”) website.
The Inquiry was intended to, in the interest of general consumer and merchant protection, identify anti-competitive practices within the e-marketplace sector. In light of the Inquiry findings, the Report, inter alia, recommends implementing certain ameliorative measures. To that end, the Report contains the following recommendations:
- strengthen applicable secondary legislation
- implement a code of conduct applicable to e-marketplace platforms in order to eliminate current imbalances in bargaining power between merchant and e-marketplace platform operator
- promulgate standards for e-marketplace conduct of gatekeeper enterprises
Public comments on the Report may be submitted to the TCA until 9 June 2021, via its website.
The Report and accompanying announcement are available in Turkish at this link
